Archive 15Archive 18Archive 19Archive 20Archive 21Archive 22Archive 25

The Signpost: 24 September 2012

Thanks

Thanks-for editing the info box at the Charles Crosby article. I had difficulties trying to edit info boxes.RFD (talk) 12:07, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

No problem. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 12:11, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 October 2012

Müdigkeit

Copied from my talk page.

I've adjusted your block of User:Müdigkeit, as discussed at User talk:Müdigkeit#Blocked. While I normally have a great deal of respect for your decisions, I wonder if you haven't taken this a bit personally? Because an indef-block of an established user, where there was no warning given locally, is more than a bit ... extreme. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 13:13, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh dear, Philosopher. You've violated the blocking policy and administrator policy in order to substitute your decision for mine. You have not, prior to changing the block, consulted me as the blocking administrator. You've not taken it to an administrative noticeboard (at which time you would be required to notify me). You've failed to understand that an indefinite block is not the same thing as a permanent block. The indefinite block was applied to prevent further disruption by an account that has now become a cross-wiki disruptive account. Do you have any experience with cross-wiki disruptive accounts? Do you understand that the user has demonstrated escalating disruptive behaviour on German Wikipedia, and then started behaving disruptively and ignoring longstanding community practice on this project within three weeks of coming here? You're not responding in any way to an unblock request. Do you have any reason to expect that I would not have responded favourably to an unblock request from the user that undertook to refrain from attempting draconian action to alter community practices without even discussing these practices with the community? I suggest the following: reinstate the block that was in place, which was intended to be indefinite (and not permanent), and then take it to the admin noticeboard for discussion. I am going to copy this over to your talk page and to the user's talk page as well. Risker (talk) 15:55, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
To avoid the continued replication of this thread, I'm replying at that user's talk page. Multiple duplicate threads ... get confusing fast. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 04:51, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 08 October 2012

Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot

We are currently running a study on the effects of adding additional information to SuggestBot’s recommendations. Participation in the study is voluntary. Should you wish to not participate in the study, or have questions or concerns, you can find contact information in the consent information sheet.

We have added information about the readership and quality of the suggested articles using a Low/Medium/High scale. For readership the scale goes from Low   to High  , while for quality the scale goes from Low   to High  .

SuggestBot predicts that you will enjoy editing some of these articles. Have fun!

Stubs   Cleanup
    David Wiggins       Stephen Foster
    Christian W. Slagle       Murdock-Portal Elementary School
    Virgil Melvin Hancher       Slovenia
    Lunar precession   Merge
    Scott K. Jenkins       Michael Connelly (politician)
    Duane C. Spriestersbach       Kolache
    Nathan Ransom Leonard       A Preface to Paradise Lost
    George Thacher   Add sources
    Qiu Bo       Lock and Key
    Chad Hays       Living History Farms
    Richard D. Remington       New York Red Bulls
    Peter E. Nathan   Wikify
    Chester Arthur Phillips       Teppakulam
    Minnesota elections, 2008       Alan Moses
    Silas Totten       Cirencester (UK Parliament constituency)
    Red Book (Albania)   Expand
    George Edwin MacLean       United States House of Representatives elections, 1972
    Oliver M. Spencer       NATO summit
    Walter Albert Jessup       Wilton, Iowa

SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly, your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!

If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. Regards from Nettrom (talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot (talk) 12:47, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 October 2012

VPT

Thanks for clarifying, and thanks for your help. Much appreciated. GiantSnowman 11:27, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

David J. Strachman: OTRS can help direct the person to who should handle the issue, and what evidence is needed

The Afd discussion was pointless, since the nom wasn't asking for a deletion based on notability. If nom has legal backing for the request (I don't know if Strachman has), the right people to check with would be OTRS, who would know where to forward the req. to. Churn and change (talk) 15:20, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't disagree with the closure - the nomination was definitely premature, since the request should have been forwarded to OTRS, but unless the WMF was willing to step in with an WP:OFFICE action, the place to forward the request would be right back to AfD (which doesn't only deal with notability issues). --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:24, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
If WMF isn't willing to delete, I don't think there is anything much to it; there isn't any policy/guideline which says subjects have a special right over their articles. There is a second deletion nomination open now, by somebody who is not involved with Strachman, questioning notability. Churn and change (talk) 15:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
Well then, I guess we agree. And yeah, I suppose I might as well take a look at the new AfD. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:34, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Watchlist removals

I just removed 2,436 items from my watchlist, including everything in article-space. I'm adding a few back, but not everything! Hopefully this will make it a little easier to manage, though I wish there was an easy way to leave the redirects and redlinks on the watchlist. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 17:13, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 October 2012

Thank you!

Thanks for accepting my AWB request. I submitted the comment just after you at WP:VP(P)#Complex articles, went to check whether the request was accepted and got surprised that the request was accepted by you just before the comment was posted. It's amazing! :) ···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 00:45, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome. That is an interesting coincidence! --Philosopher Let us reason together. 01:11, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
And today, I saw you at the Simple talk. Its amazing! (I had switched my home page from enwp to simplewp a few days before due to slow loading of enwp so that I can login from there and then come here. I felt the Simple as a very peaceful place)···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 21:12, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Contacting you re: your deletion of "Stevie Vann" page.

Discussing this page in [the talk page for Stevie Vann.]

I invite you to contribute to that page rather than discuss it on your talk page. It's not you I want to discuss but re-creating a wikipedia page for "Stevie Vann" but the system seems to be pointing me to contact you and I don't know how to do that other than create an entry on your talk page. Sorry if this is the wrong move just let us know and I will create an entry in the "Requests for undeletion" page. Thanks. Peter Dow (talk) 05:54, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Below copied from the now-deleted Talk:Stevie Vann. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:15, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
I was looking for her entry in Wikipedia and only found a reference to a deleted page for "Stevie Vann" and I want to discuss creating a page which doesn't get deleted.
The woman singer "Stevie Vann" is discussed in this source Last Fm - Stevie Vann.
In what appears to be her "official" website, she is named as "Stevie Vann Lange".
She speaks about her singing career in this video - Stevie Lange, Tell us your story!
I know her singing from the TV advert jingles she sung in the 1980s / 90s. One advert jingle in particular, the "Whoah ... Bodyform" is so famous that people of my generation have it hard-wired into our brains and is almost part of British culture. The jingle has recently been mentioned in a viral video on YouTube with more than 3,000,000 views - Bodyform - the Truth.
Anyway, does Wikipedia want to stay in denial about this singer with her ultra-famous voice? I trust not.


As an aside, the instructions given on the talk page for the deleted page (on a red background) attempting to explain whether or not to proceed to talk about a deleted page didn't make much sense to me. What did the deleted page contain? I presume my content above must be different from the deleted page. I have given sources certainly and the reasons given for deletion seem to be that no sources were given so I am reasonably sure my content must be different from the deleted page. But how can anyone, however different their comments, be 100% sure that their comment is different if the page has been deleted? The instructions in red read somewhat like a catch-22 rule to prevent anyone reviving a deleted page that someone from the Wikipedia High Command has deleted.
Anyway, I thought Wikipedia ought to have a page for this singer and I am surprised there isn't and think it is about time someone authored a page though I am not sure that I am the best person to write it but I will if no-one else does and that's OK with the editors.
Peter Dow (talk) 05:20, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
First, you were right to come here to discuss it, sorry for the delay in getting back to you, by the way. Second, there is no "Wikipedia High Command," as I'm sure you know. However, we can't make the content of deleted pages generally available since many of them appear to contain copyright violations or slander/libel and are thus in violation or potential violation of the law. Which is where "asking an admin" comes in, since we can look at the deleted pages and check them.
Stevie Vann looks like it was probably an okay article, except that it had no reliable sources. There were sources, mind you, but they were either completely unreliable - like the Geocities page - or were primary sources (sources connected to the subject of the article) - like the artist's website.
So the question is: Do you have enough sources for what you think the article should say? Can you verify the content with sources other than the artist herself? (e.g. newspaper/magazine articles, books, maybe mentions by other artists) Note particularly that claims that the artist is notable and worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia must be supported by reliable secondary sources and so must controversy about her. If so, you have two choices: I can undelete the old article, which had some useful formatting and structure, or you can create your own version of the article.
Sorry for all of the hassle. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:38, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
P.S. If you think an instructional page should be clarified, you can either let me know which one and how and I'll do it or you can just be WP:BOLD and do it yourself. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:38, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I wish to quote a comment I made on Gogo Dodo's talk page as regards his deletion of my talk page.

My objection to Gogo Dodo deleting "Talk: Stevie Vann" page
Talk: Stevie Vann page I re-created because I wanted to discuss a previous deletion of the subject "Stevie Vann" page and the singer Stevie Vann herself, with a view to restoring or creating a new "Stevie Vann" page.
The criterion you quoted for a speedy deletion, G8, "21:17, 29 October 2012 Gogo Dodo (talk | contribs) deleted page Talk:Stevie Vann (G8: Talk page of a nonexistent or deleted page)" may not apply because an exclusion for talk pages without a corresponding subject page is given in Wikipedia's Criteria for speedy deletion, G8, to quote -
"This excludes any page that is useful to Wikipedia, and in particular deletion discussions that are not logged elsewhere".
So "G8" may not be a valid criterion for a speedy deletion of a deletion discussion; your speedy deletion was particularly invalid I suggest because you seem to have exhibited a demonstrable disregard for the need to log the discussion elsewhere. Tut, tut.
It appears that Philosopher, with knowledge of your summary deletion of that talk page I started, it, has dug out my deleted text using his administrator abilities and pasted it into his talk page here.
So my thanks are due to Philosopher for logging my content but no thanks to you, Gogo Dodo, as you seem to have disregarded the deletion discussion I was attempting. So I object to your summary deletion but if you now restore the Talk: Stevie Vann page you deleted, perhaps suggesting why you think it ought to be deleted then we can take the discussion from there on that page, where it belongs. If you insist and refuse to reverse your deletion I intend to request elsewhere that my Talk: Steve Vann page be restored, overruling your inappropriate, invalid, heavy-handed and contemptuous abuse of administration powers.
Peter Dow (talk) 20:07, 30 October 2012 (UTC)


As regards the subject page, I'd be curious to read the content of the original deleted page and until I do so I could not even guess whether or not there might be sources for that original content. Would not the original author be the best person to offer sources for his / her own content? Who was the original author of the deleted page? I offered sources in my talk page content only for why I believed the singer Stevie Vann Lange is a notable person worthy of a subject page in Wikipedia. I haven't yet given any thought as to what I would write if I was the one left to author a new Stevie Vann subject page; that's not my priority right now.

No need to be sorry for the delay. I just wish administrators on Wikipedia would rather delay deleting subject pages I would have liked to read or talk pages I would like to have added to.

I'd suggest - restore the original Stevie Vann page and let all those with an interest in Stevie Vann (rather than an interest in Wikipedia administrators) discuss possible sources (and edits to remove content which can't be sourced) in the correct place for such a discussion - in the Talk: Stevie Vann page. Peter Dow (talk) 20:44, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I've restored the original article (and, incidentally, its talk page). Please be aware, though, that until/unless adequate sources are added, it is going to be at some risk for deletion. As for your other comments, can I suggest that you assume good faith here? The admins are volunteers who want to build an encyclopedia, just as you are. Happy editing! --Philosopher Let us reason together. 21:03, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Ian Jackson

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Ian Jackson. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service.RFC bot (talk) 17:15, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Re: Recognition

Thanks very much for the barnstar! I'm planning an entire Midwestern series, so Michigan is up next. I see you've signed up for the 2013 Wikicup. Good luck! Ruby 2010/2013 04:26, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome, and thanks! --Philosopher Let us reason together. 04:28, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 October 2012

WikiCup 2012 October newsletter

 

The 2012 WikiCup has come to a close; congratulations to   Cwmhiraeth (submissions), our 2012 champion! Cwmhiraeth joins our exclusive club of previous winners: Dreamafter (2007), jj137 (2008), Durova (2009), Sturmvogel 66 (2010) and Hurricanehink (2011). Our final standings were as follows:

  1.   Cwmhiraeth (submissions)
  2.   Sasata (submissions)
  3.   Grapple X (submissions)
  4.   Casliber (submissions)
  5.   Muboshgu (submissions)
  6.   Miyagawa (submissions)
  7.   Ruby2010 (submissions)
  8.   Dana Boomer (submissions)

Prizes for first, second, third and fourth will be awarded, as will prizes for all those who reached the final eight. Every participant who scored in the competition will receive a ribbon of participation. In addition to the prizes based on placement, the following special prizes will be awarded based on high performance in particular areas of content creation. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, the prize is awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round.

Awards will be handed out in the coming days; please bear with us! This year's competition also saw fantastic contributions in all rounds, from newer Wikipedians contributing their first good or featured articles, right up to highly experienced Wikipedians chasing high scores and contributing to topics outside of their usual comfort zones. It would be impossible to name all of the participants who have achieved things to be proud of, but well done to all of you, and thanks! Wikipedia has certainly benefited from the work of this year's WikiCup participants.

Next year's WikiCup will begin in January. Currently, discussions and polls are open, and all contributions are welcome. You can also sign up for next year's competition. There will be no further newsletters this year, although brief notes may be sent out in December to remind everyone about the upcoming competition. It's been a pleasure to work with you all, and we hope to see you all in January! J Milburn (talkemail) and The ed17 (talkemail) 00:38, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

New intractable COI draft

I've put up a new draft. I know your concerns were of a general nature and not over specific wording, but consider that the goal of this is to elevate the discussion on COI to more refined terminology. One goal of mine is to reduce the knee-jerk stigma of COI, and its hard association with "paid advocacy". Editors should realize that most everyone has a COI in some area or another, and refining our terms by getting rid of pejorative jargon like "COI editing" is a step toward that. I know this proposal doesn't outright do that, but by introducing better terminology based on relationships and obligations, I think it's a step in that direction. Gigs (talk) 13:53, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice/comment; replied there. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:59, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Highlights from September 2012

Highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation Report and the Wikimedia engineering report for September 2012, with a selection of other important events from the Wikimedia movement
 
About · Subscribe/unsubscribe · Distributed via Global message delivery, 08:00, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

 
Hello, Philosopher. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of current members of the Iowa Senate/archive1.
Message added 03:57, 4 November 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

TBrandley 03:57, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2023).

  Guideline and policy news

  • An RfC is open regarding amending the paid-contribution disclosure policy to add the following text: Any administrator soliciting clients for paid Wikipedia-related consulting or advising services not covered by other paid-contribution rules must disclose all clients on their userpage.

  Technical news

  • Administrators can now choose to add the user's user page to their watchlist when changing the usergroups for a user. This works both via Special:UserRights and via the API. (T272294)

  Arbitration

  Miscellaneous


Tech News: 2023-41

MediaWiki message delivery 14:37, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-42

MediaWiki message delivery 23:45, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 October 2023

Tech News: 2023-43

MediaWiki message delivery 23:14, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-44

MediaWiki message delivery 23:19, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

WikiCup 2023 November newsletter

The WikiCup is a marathon rather than a sprint and all those reaching the final round have been involved in the competition for the last ten months, improving Wikipedia vastly during the process. After all this hard work,   BeanieFan11 has emerged as the 2023 winner and the WikiCup Champion. The finalists this year were:-

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether they made it to the final round or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the competition, some of whom did very well. Wikipedia has benefitted greatly from the quality creations, expansions and improvements made, and the numerous reviews performed. All those who reached the final round will win awards. The following special awards will be made based on high performance in particular areas of content creation and review. Awards will be handed out in the next few days.

  •   Unlimitedlead wins the featured article prize, for 7 FAs in total including 3 in round 2.
  •   MyCatIsAChonk wins the featured list prize, for 5 FLs in total.
  •   Lee Vilenski wins the featured topic prize, for a 6-article featured topic in round 4.
  •   MyCatIsAChonk wins the featured picture prize, for 6 FPs in total.
  •   BeanieFan11 wins the good article prize, for 75 GAs in total, including 61 in the final round.
  •   Epicgenius wins the good topic prize, for a 41-article good topic in the final round.
  •   LunaEatsTuna wins the GA reviewer prize, for 70 GA reviews in round 1.
  •   MyCatIsAChonk wins the FA reviewer prize, for 66 FA reviews in the final round.
  •   Epicgenius wins the DYK prize, for 49 did you know articles in total.
  •   Muboshgu wins the ITN prize, for 46 in the news articles in total.

The WikiCup has run every year since 2007. With the 2023 contest now concluded, I will be standing down as a judge due to real life commitments, so I hope that another editor will take over running the competition. Please get in touch if you are interested. Next year's competition will hopefully begin on 1 January 2024. You are invited to sign up to participate in the contest; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors. It only remains to congratulate our worthy winners once again and thank all participants for their involvement! (If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.) Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:52, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 6 November 2023

Tech News: 2023-45

MediaWiki message delivery 21:04, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2023).

 

  Administrator changes

  0xDeadbeef
  Tamzin
  Dennis Brown

  Interface administrator changes

  Pppery
 

  Guideline and policy news

  Technical news

  Arbitration

  • Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves from 12 November 2023 until 21 November 2023 to stand in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections.
  • Xaosflux, RoySmith and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2023 Arbitration Committee Elections. BusterD is the reserve commissioner.
  • Following a motion, the contentious topic designation of Prem Rawat has been struck. Actions previously taken using this contentious topic designation are still in force.
  • Following several motions, multiple topic areas are no longer designated as a contentious topic. These contentious topic designations were from the Editor conduct in e-cigs articles, Liancourt Rocks, Longevity, Medicine, September 11 conspiracy theories, and Shakespeare authorship question cases.
  • Following a motion, remedies 3.1 (All related articles under 1RR whenever the dispute over naming is concerned), 6 (Stalemate resolution) and 30 (Administrative supervision) of the Macedonia 2 case have been rescinded.
  • Following a motion, remedy 6 (One-revert rule) of the The Troubles case has been amended.
  • An arbitration case named Industrial agriculture has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case close 8 November.

  Miscellaneous


Tech News: 2023-46

MediaWiki message delivery 23:50, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 November 2023

Tech News: 2023-47

MediaWiki message delivery 00:53, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-48

MediaWiki message delivery 23:06, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 December 2023

Tech News: 2023-49

MediaWiki message delivery 23:48, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2023).

  Guideline and policy news

  Arbitration

  • Following a motion, the Extended Confirmed Restriction has been amended, removing the allowance for non-extended-confirmed editors to post constructive comments on the "Talk:" namespace. Now, non-extended-confirmed editors may use the "Talk:" namespace solely to make edit requests related to articles within the topic area, provided that their actions are not disruptive.
  • The Arbitration Committee has announced a call for Checkusers and Oversighters, stating that it will currently be accepting applications for CheckUser and/or Oversight permissions at any point in the year.
  • Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 11, 2023 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.

Tech News: 2023-50

MediaWiki message delivery 02:10, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-51

MediaWiki message delivery 16:16, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 December 2023

Welcome to the 2024 WikiCup!

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The 2024 competition has just begun and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. Even if you are a novice editor you should be able to advance to at least the second round, improving your editing skills as you go. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page ready for you to take part. Any questions on the scoring, rules or anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close on 31 January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. The judges for the WikiCup this year are: Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email), Epicgenius (talk · contribs · email), and Frostly (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:21, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2023).

  Arbitration

  Miscellaneous


Tech News: 2024-02

MediaWiki message delivery 01:18, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 January 2024

"CAT:LIP" listed at Redirects for discussion

  The redirect CAT:LIP has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 January 12 § CAT:LIP until a consensus is reached. Utopes (talk / cont) 18:32, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-03

MediaWiki message delivery 00:11, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:WikiProject Iowa/doc

 Template:WikiProject Iowa/doc has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Gonnym (talk) 09:10, 10 June 2024 (UTC)